The OregonianTriMet has placed a bus driver on leave following a report that he choked a passenger aboard a Southeast Powell Boulevard line last month.

Operator Brian Christeson, 53, was in his TriMet uniform but off duty when he allegedly got into an argument and scuffled with 57-year-old Ludwig Lipscomb, said agency spokeswoman Bekki Witt.

"It was about 1:40 p.m. and the operator had just been released from his shift," Witt said. Christeson, who Witt said is an operator on the No. 9 line, was headed back to the Powell garage.

Lipscomb could not be reached for comment, but he told KGW that "he is still in pain nearly three weeks after the alleged incident." The Portland man told the television station that he was aboard the bus when an Asian couple boarded without fare. The couple also had trouble communicating with the driver, Lipscomb said.

Christeson stepped in and made racist comments, Lipscomb told KGW, prompting a heated verbal exchange. Lipscomb said Christeson then grabbed him by the throat.

In 2009, the Legislature amended the Oregon Revised Statutes to include strangulation as a crime, primarily to deal with domestic violence cases. According to the ORS, "a person commits the crime of strangulation if the person knowingly impedes the normal breathing or circulation of the blood of another person" by, among other things, applying pressure on the throat or neck of the other person.

TriMet placed the operator on leave the day of the reported incident. Witt said transit police are conducting an investigation and Christeson faces discipline, including possible termination.

TriMet declined a request for a copy of the video of the incident, saying it is evidence in a criminal case.

Blogging TriMet operator Dan Christensen says he has a hard time buying the passenger's retelling of the scuffle.

"Now I know this driver and know he is not a nut," Christensen writes on his TriMet confidential blog. "If a fight started I'm sure it was not one sided."

Christensen worries it's "open season" on TriMet operators. "Lots of people know that bus drivers want to keep their jobs," he blogs, adding that "we get punched, hit, spit on and we seldom resist."

"I have been threatened to the point that I feared for my life. To the point that if I had a weapon there would have been a dead body and that would not have been me. TriMet would love it if every driver had a black belt in opossum style Kung Fu."

That may be true, but data from TriMet doesn't support the claims of frequent assaults on drivers.

TriMet says there was one reported aggravated assault and nine reported
simple assaults -- ranging from a rider grabbing a driver's arm to
slapping a wrist or shoving -- from Jan. 1 through Nov. 30, 2009 (the
agency doesn't have December reported data yet).

If there is no crime, Christensen writes, "this driver deserves his job back its as simple as that. One thing I can say for sure is I don’t think this so called 'victim' will be engaging in an altercation with a driver any time soon for that this bus driver has done us all a favor."